I'm posting at this ungodly hour to make this ungodly announcement: the opening round of 2008 Mega-Beast Death-Match has begun. Vote, post, or call in to help us decide who will walk away from the fray: Skullverine, the grizzly sized undead Wolverine, Squid Marx, the commie cephla'tank, Hornaztee, a hideous wasp with kamikaze larvae, or The Indomitable Snow Man, the moody cryptid with ice coursing through his veins (literally!)

Hit http://www.bokaier.com/mega-beasts to read dossiers, view artwork, and cast your hemoglobin splattered ballot. Limit is once per day, voting ends on Sunday August 2nd at midnight eastern. Forum votes will also be recorded.

To Rant

Call in and leave a message rant supporting which of the 4 contestants you think should win and dog the others. Passion and expletives are encouraged, but shall be bleeped when aired on the show.

410 702 5842

Also, you can skype at me and leave one for free if you don't have free long distance- normsherman is skype name. You might just hear yourself on the upcoming podcast!

The wasp is pretty awesome because of the larvae, but they can't do much damage in liquid nitrogen. Plus, Yeti is Indomitable (although I suspect his parents may have just called him that to improve his low self-esteem).

Never judge anyone until you have biopsied their brain.

"Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle."
Known Some Call Is Air Am

I gotta agree with strawman on that, The Indomitable Snowman against the Hornaztee in a one on one match would leave the Indomitable Snowman the victor. However, Since it's a 4 beast free for all match, here's what I imagine would happen.

The Snowman would beat the Hornaztee and the Skullverine (hornaztee because its attacks wouldn't affect the snowman, and Skullverine because it attacks relentlessly).
The Hornaztee would beat the Squid Marx and the Skullverine (worms through soft flesh)
Squid Marx would beat the Snowman and the skullverine (since the hornaztee is too fast to accurately target)
Skullverine might get the drop on squid marx and tear through his soft flesh, although I wouldn't give the skullverine that much credit.

So, In my opinion, the biggest thing is who the last two are. In my opinion, if the skullverine isn't first out of the running it'll be second. If the Cephalopod decides to target the yeti first, then the hornaztee's victory is assured. If, however, the skullverine manages to devour Squid Marx first, then the yeti will be the champion.

Although, again, this depends on how much damage has been taken by the combatants. If Squid Marx had been firing upon the Yeti before being ripped apart by the skullverine, then the yeti might cut off it's arms in desperation, leaving the skullverine against an armless yeti, and it's clear who would win that fight. The Hornaztee wouldn't be too far behind with stinger one and two flashing.

My personal feeling was that the larvae, as hungry as they are, would sicken and expire, trying to gorge on the Skullverine's putrid, expired flesh. Assuming they're the final two, Hornaztee would be reduced to hacking away at him with its stingers, which would be a war of attrition Skullverine could win.

Also, Skullverine holds the dark horse advantage of a gimped, lumbering finish after heavy damage. If Squid Marx is prone, his arms ripped from him, he has nothing to do but die. Skullverine would continue living as just a head. In the situation they have a climactic battle that leaves both combatants dismembered and in critical condition, Skullverine wins by default.

The true x factor is Indomitable Snow Man. If he gets motivated, a quick spray of blood could crack any of the other beasts in half. ISM would just pound at Skullverine's detached head like a caveman with a clam till it fought no more.

Squid Marx could easily kill Hornatzee. There's nothing like a flame-thrower for shooting down flying insects (as I know from personal experience). Additionally, all those tentacles make for great 360 defense against a small, light threat. Squid Marx > Hornatzee.

Hornatzee could take out Skullverine no problem. Flesh-eating grubs are the ideal weapon for destroying an undead creature. Since Skullverine cannot fly, Hornaztee would just need to hover indefinitely to be invulnerable. As soon as Skully is distracted for one second–STING! Flesh eating grubs take care of the rest. Hornatzee > Skullverine

Not only do the respective weakness/strengths of these three form a perfect circle of death, but the pairings are so extreme that they would kill/be killed almost instantly.

This leaves the wild card: Indomitable. This guy's strengths and weaknesses don't really interact with the others at all. His frozen blood would kill Hornatzee's grubs, but he's got no effective way to attack Hornatzee. He has the physical strength and freezing blood spray to repel Skullverine, but neither would do much against a creature that must be totally destroyed. His frozen nature makes him and heat-baesed Squid totally cancel each other out. The attacks of each would force the other to stay at a distance. So Indomitable is essentially neutral, neither a danger to nor in danger from the others.

So, I think the way the battle plays out is totally dependent on what Indomitable does. If he sits on the sidelines, the other three will kill each other and he'll only have to deal with a single weakened survivor. Or he could form a false alliance with one of the three–guaranteeing that that Beast would beat the other two–then betray his ally and kill him with a cheap shot. This would work best with Hornatzee. Indomitable counteracts Squid's flame-throwers with freezing blood, allowing Hornatzee to go in for the larvae kill. Then, while Horny is busy depositing the killer larvae, Indomitable smashed her flat, leaving him victorious.

Of course, if the other three are smart, they will realize the unique place of Indomitable and gang up on him before going at each other.

I just can't call this. Too many subtle factors. One thing is certain: Indomitable is the fulcrum on which the battle will turn.

Boy, it's a disadvantage here not being familiar with zombie biology. What is it about a zombie bite that turns the victim into a zombie? If it is a zombie virus, wouldn't you also become a zombie if you bit the zombie? In which case, Indomitable just might end up undead. But then, so what? Aside from slowing you down, wouldn't undeadness be a strength? If the wasp larvae bite Skullverine, do they become undead larvae? In which case, immune to liquid nitrogen, although smashable into tiny undead shards? In any case, I don't see how squidmarx does well in this group. If only he had a sperm sword...

Never judge anyone until you have biopsied their brain.

"Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle."
Known Some Call Is Air Am

I think it was stated that Skullverine in undead simply because he wants to be. He's dead, but he doesn't let that little detail cramp his style. He's closer to being a traditional voodoo zombie animated by magic than a Resident Evil virus-infected zombie. I don't think his condition it communicable... Although if it was we might just as well declare him the winner now.[/quote]

Mr. Tweedy's comment is closer to the idea I had in mind when we were round-tabling on Skullverine's powers. He is a 'zombie' in that he is animated dead, but not a bio-zombie that can amass a horde with his juices. That type of power would end the fights all too quickly. He'd be stealing and re-purposing larvae like candy.

For the discussion of the fight, assume Skullverine is juice free, and all pulp. That dribbling liquid in the artwork is to be blood, not saliva.

The only way to defeat him is with a killshot--something that would completely disintegrate, melt, or vaporize his body in 5 seconds or less. Any less devastating attacks are just going to put you higher on his list of stuff to kill. Are any of the other three contestants capable of a killshot? Not that I can think of.

It was also a good point that Hornaztee's hovering ability will keep him out of damage range of Skullverine. Even regular-sized hornets can't fly forever though, and you've gotta wonder how much damage kamikazee maggots would really perpetrate on an undead creature. Think about it: whats going to happen once those maggots are implanted? They'll start eating, Skullverine will wonder what the hell is going on, and he'll just pull open his chest cavity and pluck those suckers out. Again, only a devastating attack can put this guy down, and kamikazee maggots are more of an accumulating damage, like a poison spell in Final Fantasy.

I do think there is a kill shot possibility for Skullverine we might be missing. A good, well-placed spray of napalm, and he's going to burn. He's fast, intimidating at a charge, but Squid Marx has those big eyes, he'd get a good look. In the aforementioned rock/paper/scissors dynamic, Squid sinks Wolverine.

Hey, I've been bothering friends, family, and scattered internet outposts, trying to draw in fresh blood for the Beast Match. One of my stops was the Escape Artists (aka pseudopod, escapepod, podcastle) forums. I dropped a link with brief explanation as a topic in their miscellaneous section. I doubt though I'll get much cred, as I'm a low post count 'extern.' If anyone else is a frequent visitor of that board, and wants to lend my post post some star power with a follow up comment, it's here:

delfedd wrote:I gotta agree with strawman on that, The Indomitable Snowman against the Hornaztee in a one on one match would leave the Indomitable Snowman the victor. However, Since it's a 4 beast free for all match, here's what I imagine would happen.

According to this thinking, SADM is not about survival of the strongest, but like Survivor, or Risk, or Monopoly, a matter of alliances and strategy.

I submit that in the heat of battle there is little time for such calculation. You may immediately sense the superiority of one of your three foes, and therefore join whoever is fighting against them, until they are defeated. (That is, unless you had squid for brains, in which case you'd probably form a third front, and attack from behind while the others were fighting each other.)
But I don't get the sense of great intelligence and quick wit in this group, so I think you got to go with a combination of blunt force trauma and liquid nitrogen. He may be abominable; or even abdominal; but he's still INDOMITABLE!

Never judge anyone until you have biopsied their brain.

"Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle."
Known Some Call Is Air Am

StalinSays wrote:I do think there is a kill shot possibility for Skullverine we might be missing. A good, well-placed spray of napalm, and he's going to burn. He's fast, intimidating at a charge, but Squid Marx has those big eyes, he'd get a good look. In the aforementioned rock/paper/scissors dynamic, Squid sinks Wolverine.

It is true that napalm could destroy Skullverine, but napalm isn't an instant kill. Skully would take several minutes to burn up, and (since he's immune to pain) he'd still be in killing form for that duration. He'd have plenty of time to tear open Squid's braincase before he was incapacitated.

This opens up an interesting scenario: Squid kills Hornatzee, then dowses Skully in napalm. Skully, while burning, kills Squid, then expires himself. Indomitable could win without firing a proverbial shot.

Of course there's also the possibility that Squid could repel Skully until he burns up. Squid has treads, so he doesn't need his arms. They could be sacrificed as meat shields to fend off Skully until the Napalm had done its work...

Squid is also probably the most intelligent member of the group. He could convince Hornatzee and Skully to gang up on Indomitable, kill him, then spray both his allies with his flame-throwers. He'd lose some arms, but it would be a sure victory...

Hey, - everything (including this week's DC) is a bit delayed due to the general apple sucks ass excuse (this time its cuz they switched from mac.com to mobileme.com for iphone users- and in the process have cut off lots of people with podcasts and blogs from publishing- including us- until the update is ready.) Hope this gets resolved soon- good episode of DC and SADM ready to get chucked out to yall.

BUT the good news is- while we're waitin, we could use some more voice mails to stick on SADM! There are some great thoughts on this board- call 410 702 5842 or skype normsherman and get on the first cast with your thoughts! Don't be shy!

I looked at how each contestant would probably fare in a one on one duel with each other contestant and chose the likely winner. Then I went through all the possible competitions you could have with four contestants to see who would be left to play off for the title.

In each case Squid Marx was the winner. Given the variety of strengths and weaknesses (which I took into account) I didn't expect any one competitor to be so dominant---in fact, I was worried I'd have a three way tie.

The reason is simple---I didn't think anyone could beat Squid Marx, at least by themselves. Indomitable Snow Man came fairly close in my view, but the squid seems to have more and varied attacks. If Indomitable were to beat Squid, then Indomitable would win two of the three scenarios, and would thus gain my vote.

I disagree with the idea that Squid Marx would be able to kill Hornaztee easily. Remember, he's built with World War Two communist Technology. I'm not positive, but it seems like the Squid Marx doesn't have a missile launcher or the like. This leads me to believe that Squid Marx is a short range combatant like all the others. Hornaztee is very fast opponent, and strikes me as a roguish creature, striking when not expected. And remember, it's paralytic poison is perfect for implanting the larvae in it's prey. I think that The hornaztee would wait until Squid Marx is distracted, then whirr in from behind and strike.

I am inclined to agree. There is good reason for the expression "like a fish out of water". Squid Marx would easily win a naval battle. But on land, with Communist technology, just when he needs his napalm blastering tentacles, he's sure to discover that they are pinned under his tank treads. Self-immolation is a possibility.

Never judge anyone until you have biopsied their brain.

"Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle."
Known Some Call Is Air Am